The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1887-01-12


reverentlv away in his note book, say
ing to himself that ne would return it
to the giver when he came back.
The train rolled onward through q
white, unduIating country, and at eight
o'clock came into Chicago. An omni-
bus carried him and other passengers
across that young Babylon, whose
streets, though the winds were glancing
icily from the chill bosom of Lake
Michigan. were ablaze with light and
flowing with theater-g going people. On
the lake front he presently took train
for the East, hearing the slosh, slosh,
of the intlowing ridges of cold water as
the train rolled away into the darkness.
Sitting there with arms folded and
chin against his chest, the midnight
hour found his thoughts, lulled by the
rumble and beat of the wheels, turning
dreamily among the receding days and
deeds and forms and faces that had filled
his life. There softly across the smooth
sward, among amyriad Pickering, leaf
sifted lights, went the velvet-footed
Maun. She did not look back, but
glanced and wavered and glimmered on
and on and on through thousand
slender, sun-fiaked tree-trunks, and
faded out at last against a long, low
slit of blue sea-water. Then somehow
he felt himself yearning, not so much
for her lost form, as for the beauteous
motion that faded with it. Suddenly
it seemed so silent that he thought
he could hear the blood running
through all his veins and the incom-
municable sound of thoughts forming
and touching together in his brain, and
he awoke to find the train stopping at
a station, and to sec the passengers
nodding, yawning, leaning and lying
in the dim light about him. All seemed
mournful, ghostly, deserted, drear,
and his footsteps sounded strange and
intrusive.
SO the night, broken for him and
full of dreams, jostled, and rumbled
and Jared on into the dawn, and that
evening the train rolled into Earling-
ford. Very strange did John Earling
feel as he walked down the main street
of this old town on the banks of the
Ohio. 1t had been named for his ia
Their, he knew, and a thousand times that
father, to him unknown, had gone
along the self-same street, and doubt
less his eyes had fallen upon many
of the self-same tore fronts, and his
footsteps upon many of the same worn
stones. He himself had been borne
away from it when child. going down
the broad river on boat, as he had
heard Joel Whitney tell, and thence
by rail into the West; and now he had
come again after twenty years had
gone, and, knowing no one and him
self utterly unknown, was walking
with kind of expectant, wondering
step along the twilight street of the
town that bore his name. Many of the
passers looked curiously at the tall,
pale youth, bu. among all their faces
there passed not one that he had ever
seen.
A light snow lay upon the ground
and the air was motionless and chill.
He turned into one of the two rather
dingy houses that divided the hotel
honors of the place, and no one being
in the little yellow Office, he wrote his
name in the much despatched register
and waited. He could not but feel it
strange that place so intimately
known and connected with his ante
cedents should be so unfamiliar to him.
He went to the open door and looked
out The vim and stir and freshness
of Openstone was not there. The long.
weather-beate street had some loiter-
ing pedestrians in it and team hitched
here and there, and upon the porch OF
the other hotel the lean landlord stood
looking with sour dolefnlness toward
him. The town seemed very dull,
though doubtless it had its lively days,
for the region was well-to-do and busy
enough, and the farms were old and
valuable. In moment John Earrings
hostess, a fat lady who leaned back
and shook a good deal about the bust
and gastric region when she stepped,
came bustling in behind the counter.
He went forward as she courtesied and
wiped her fat hands upon her apron,
and asked ii he might obtain lodging
for the night.
Certainly said the fat lady, with
a very agreeable smile; 'jist step in
this way with your baggage and take
the parlor bedroom. Ny son should
q been out to the depot and brought up
your things, but he's out to the farm
gettin' in a COW. and he didn't get
back until jist now. Set your things
right down there; I'll send my daugh-
ter in with some fresh water for your
pitcher. Now, what might your name
be?''
''John Earring, ma am
The fat woman S mouth and eyes
perceptibly widcned. ''Lawkm she
gasped, "be you any kin to John Earling
who was. murdered down on the south
road twenty year ago?"
81 have been told that it was my
father who lost his life there.
"LaUk!" with great gasp of won
der, you ain'tbaby Earring, be your
presume was once, a'am.'
The fat lady had her arms full Of
clothes which she had gathered off from
the bed and was pausing in the door;
'L-a-w-k!" in long, gasping whisper,
and staring over the clothes at him,
"how you hev growed!"
John Earring smiled, and after star
ing him a momentlonger with some
thing like stupid wonder, her face
flushed and look of awe came into it,
and she started on, and he heard her
say: "Lawk! lawk!" and run against
the decreasing as she emerged from
the parlor into the hall.
The young man brushed the dust
from his clothes and sat down in the
parlor and took up Il book. Presently
the fat lady came putting in with tow
els and waiter. and After nnttinr them